The Decent of High Charity
by TerraMarine
Summary: To get to the Ark, Gravemind had to get past earth, but the UNSC wasn't going to let it past without a fight.  One-shot, written because I wanted to write it.


Just a one-shot here. When I played though Halo 3, and High charity appeared, I was curious as to why it had a massive, smoking hole in it's side. So I wrote this and gave my own idea to it. Enjoy and thanks for having a look

All things Halo belong to Bungie/343 Industries/Microsoft and I don't make monies from this. The few OCs in here are my creation but aren't that important.

* * *

As the Elites left though the portal to fight Truth, Lord Hood returned to the last remaining orbital defence station to re-organize the remaining UNSC forces against the incoming flood army, and with only a section of the planet that was actually attacked, the rest of the garrisoned forces where mostly un-touched, and could be relocated to swell the defences of the portal to number unseen since Reach, but the flood are uncaring for the humans, and the portal itself does have defences against the flood…

128th Armoured Division, European detachment,  
En-route to the Forerunner Portal ETA 3 hours.

As the UNSC Ersatz headed towards South Africa, the marines onboard were preparing for a take and hold mission of the portal, and to make sure any flood that landed on the planet were killed the instant they stood, slid or squirmed their way toward any humans, or just the portal itself.  
The bodies of anything that survived the glassing were burned, weapons that lay undamaged were requisitioned and, as a testament to covenant engineering, the remains of their Anti-air turret in the ruins of Voi, were still functioning, although work was needed to be done and a few Elite had stayed behind to help the humans to set up any covenant weapons left from the war.

Three ships from the European and Middle-Eastern garrisons were sent to reinforce the depleted forces around the portal and the defences were made, firing pits, trenches, bunkers, everything that was needed was created from the rubble that survived the glassing.

Forward commander Joseph Roy led the men and women of the 128th Armoured Division and was already scanning over maps of the portal to work out defence plans and dead-zones, so that as many of his soldiers made it back alive as possible.

319th Former New Mombassa defence garrison,  
Ruins of Voi, Defending Forerunner portal 

With the arrival of the Three UNSC ships, the construction of the 'Steel Curtain', as it was named by the commanding officers, began with up-most haste, it was created in such a way, that anything trying to get in the portal met stiff resistance, but also anything that came out of the portal was also in for a battering.

The full list of armaments was staggering, and weapons that had been de-commissioned were brought back into service and experimental weapons were given the go ahead, with a flux of covenant technology from the crashed cruiser, which had been purged of flood by elites and humans alike.

A circle of anti-air defences had been set up, which included aged Flak cannons and SAM sites, experimental Surface-to-air lasers (mainly for precise destruction), the captured Anti-air turrets and wraths, and the more numerous patriot missile systems, while ground defences consisted of machine gun nests, Anti-tank bunkers and firing pits.  
Every command bunker was a fully-fledged base, including an armoury, motor-pool, barracks and even training stations for later use.  
Forward commander Joseph Roy was stationed in Command bunker 375, which was built underneath the Anti-air Turret of Voi, and was currently spreading his troops and resources along the 5 mile stretch of land he was under-control of.

"Are all approaches to our bunker secure?" he asked a Young Lieutenant  
"Yes sir, we have numerous machine gun nests and Anti-tank emplacements set up, we'll smash them to pieces, sir" he replied  
"Yes, that's all very good, but we are not fighting covenant remember" Roy replied, his thick Scottish accent coming though clearly, even with his feeble attempts to hide it.

"From what I've been told..." he said, standing up straight, Com-pad in hand, scanning over the few files he had received containing vid-captures from marines, elites, Spartan-117 and his elite compatriots, as well as detailed reports and bio-layouts of all the encountered flood forms to date.  
"…we have an unknown amount of time to defend this portal from these creatures which have unknown numbers and I intend to make sure as many of our men make it away from this as possible" he said sternly, although the Lieutenant was slightly ruffled by his stern tone, but nodded curtly and left the main command centre.

After ONI analysis of Vid-captures, all marines were armed with a Shotgun as standard and a flame-thrower was attached to every unit, mainly for destruction of bodies but also as a defensive precaution against the infection form, or 'poppers' as they were now being called, and to make the combat and pure forms take different routes and force them into choke-points.

Roy had a feeling this would be one of the last great battles of the Human-Covenant war, because it would end with their victory, or total destruction at the hands of the prophets. But even before then, they'd have to make sure that there was an earth for Commander Keyes to save.

Orbital Station Cairo  
UNSC Carrier Group 42 

The last fleet in the UNSC were formed up with the Cairo, ready to fend off anything the Flood would throw at them.  
The Fleet consisted of the last remaining carrier, Savoir of Souls, and five frigates and twelve corvettes, no destroyers had survived Truth's attack and a large number of the remaining Longswords had been used to attack the Forerunner Dreadnought and were lost in the resulting EMP blast from the portal.

The three ships that were transporting men and supplies would remain near the portal as a last line of defence in case the space-born ships failed to repel the flood.

"Lord Hood, all ships report in position" a tech officer said, not turning from his screen.  
Lord Hood had moved from the orbital station to one of the corvettes, which had formed up into a defensive barrier for the carrier, so he had the morale of the men in the ships to the highest level, that he was willing to fight along side them to the very end.  
"Good, bring the fleet to full combat alert and have the ground bases on amber level alert, we'll be ready for when these…" began Hood, but was interrupted by a tech officer on the station  
"Sir! Massive contact slipping in from Luna orbit! It's them!" he shouted, trembling from the readouts on the size of the contact  
"Get me visuals on that Rupture!" Lord Hood ordered,

A massive tear in space opened up, about 400'000 km from the carrier group, and from it, the large dome of High charity spilled forth, easily the size of a small moon and heading straight for them.

"All ships open fire! Carrier, launch all ships, hit it with everything we have!"  
Hood shouted, and they all complied. Mac cannons and missile firing, the Cairo had to re-align its main gun, but the ship was coming too fast.  
"Sir! We're not damaging it at all, it's too large for out weapons!" a tech crew yelled  
"Damn! All ships commence evasive manoeuvres!" Hood ordered, the ships complying, but it was too later for the Carrier, with 'High Charity' moving at its current speed, the corvettes and frigates just managed to evade it, but the carrier was destroyed completely, crushed like a bug on a windshield.

"Damn it…" Hood muttered under his breath, hoping the Cairo was spared "All ships, Re-target the ship and fire for effect, target it's engines or drives or whatever it has!" he yelled again, his corvette targeted it's remaining missiles and opened fire, over fifty blooms and streaks launched from it's sides, and a massive string of other missiles followed suit, alongside the MAC rounds that streaked towards the ship, impacting on the exposed rear and causing damage, but not enough.

High charity continued to plummet downwards, smoke starting to trail after it as it finally hit the atmosphere.

"Cairo!" Hood shouted into the COM, "Contact all ground bases! Bring them up to full combat alert and tell the ships to move, they can't dent that thing!"  
"Aye, Aye Sir!" a tech officer replied as the Cairo swung itself around, MAC cannon fully charged,  
"Cairo! Open fire!" Hood shouted, gripping the railing of the bridge, and was answered with a triple burst flash from the station, as three rounds streaked down after the former Covenant holy city

On the ground, the marines were rushing around their bases, getting ready for the approaching flood ship, while a faint glowing orb appeared in the sky but nobody seemed to have noticed. Roy was preparing to address his men for the impending attack  
"Right" he began, broadcasting on all channels so all his men heard him  
"We are facing a threat even greater then the covenant today, one that is older then anything we can imagine, and it will try to bring you to it's side, if any marines are infected by the flood forms, then you will have to bring them down, no matter if it's your friend, brother or even your son, you will have to kill them for the good of the rest of us" he said, knowing it was harsh, but necessary.

But it seemed the marines already knew that, and they were prepared to do what was needed, like they had always done during the war, they were marines and they would do their duty to the very end

High charity however, wasn't completely empty when it was infected by the flood, the docked ships of the brutes were easily taken over and controlled since one of them was sent to locate the portal in the first place. Now, a large number of ships, alongside infection pods, were un-docking from the station and began to decent to the portal, attempting to crash land and destroy any defences the 'humans' had set-up. But these ships soon met stiff resistance as the Ground-to-air defences opened up.

The ring of defences started a rhythmic firing sequence upon the approaching infection pods and ships, with the flak cannons and Lasers firing on the Pods, while the missiles flew towards the incoming ships, destroying a few of the small ones, including pelicans from In-Amber clad, which was still buried into one of the support pillars of High charity.

"Sir!" a marine shouted to a sergeant nearby "what the hell is that thing!"  
"Hell if I know!" the sergeant replied, "just keep ready for any green shit!" He shouted, not noticing the approaching Carrier descending upon them.

Roy grunted as a series of impacts shook his bunker, the rhythmic firing of the cannon built over them dulling any attempts of contacting him. As he looked over the complete ring of defences, a large number of bases had disappeared right off the map.  
"damn, we didn't expect something like this to happen" he thought to himself, before grabbing a COM station and broadcasted across every channel to all bases "All units, Evacuate the bases, the ships are landing right in top of us!" he bellowed as yet another impact rocked his bunker, shaking dust and dirt loose from the ceiling.  
"I repeat, all units evacuate the bases!" before he left the bunker, and ran out the exit to see a frigate flying right towards the cannon, taking every single shot of the cannon built above the base, all the while High charity got closer and close, with the three MAC rounds closing the distance even faster.

With practically thousands of ships raining down on the defences, and the destruction of the three ships defending the portal, as infection pods slammed into them, gutting them completely and sending them down onto the portals structure, High charity hurtled towards the portal intent on going though it.  
But the MAC Rounds finally impacted on it's exposed underside, the first round destroying the outer shell, the second ripped into the inside of the ship and the third and final one impacted with the wreckage of In-Amber Clad, detonating the Fusion engines of the frigate which caused a massive explosion that ripped a hole into the side of the station, damaging it's slip drives and well as it's normal thrusters, causing it to spin with the force and direction of the explosion, and it remains of the ship rained down upon on the defences.

Marines on the ground were blinded temporarily by a massive explosion on the Flood ship, even as destruction and death rained down around them, huge ships impacting all around them, flood slipping out from them, and to be gunned down by marines that had surrounded the crash-sites, the flame throwers burning everything that wasn't human.

L.T Davidson had taken command of the 128th armoured Division after a Flood ship and destroyed the bunker which Forward Commander Roy was in, killing him in the process. "I want your tanks to for up and divide among the crash sites, five to larger crashes and one on smaller crashes" he said over the COM's, "and I want the pelicans and phantoms mined and destroyed ASAP, Understand?" which the marines replied "Sir yes sir!" and they left to their assigned tasks

"May god help us all" he muttered, looking up at the thick smoke trail left by High charity, and even with everything they've done, it managed to make it though the portal although, very damaged to say the least, and with every single one of it's ships either dropped on top of them, destroyed or still falling, they knew there were less things to trouble the others…

* * *

And that's that. My take on the fight to get to the portal, cause I doubt High charity could of slip-spaced all the way to the Ark, and that the humans would of just let the ship go right on by. And considering the size of the ship, I think it would of closed the distance between the Eath and the Moon extremely quickly.

Still, thanks for reading this far and hopefully a Review will come out of it, if not, well, thanks for reading anyway


End file.
